In honor of the Oscars, this week the Randoms envision who’d be out of this world, breathing life into our 2D characters if Summit (Twilight) or Sony (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) or MTV Pictures (Napolean Dynamite) or, hey, even Lifetime (Speak) picked up our books and went, “Wow. How do I option this?”

1) For the tall blonde perfection that is Jayne Thompkins in BLACK TUESDAY, I’d cast Sarah Roemer. She was in 2007’s Disturbia, and with that face and the intelligence lurking behind those baby blues, I just know that she’d breathe life into my over-achiever.
2) For the nerdy but cute friend Tom, the one who’s breathing down Jayne’s neck in the GPA race for valedictorian, I can see Jake Sandvig, who was in this year’s Fired Up!The angst and empathy behind those eyes are perfect for the best friend who’s waiting in the wings, ready to step in to be Jayne’s everything.

3) In my new book, CASHING IN, I see Kat Dennings as my down-on-her-luck-but-scrappy Reggie. Kat was Norah in 2008’s Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and her pluck and those eyes make her perfect for Reggie, the girl who gets to have a small taste of what it might be like to be rich.
4) I see Jackson Rathbone doing a mighty fine job as Gabe, Reg’s love interest and the hot Cashmart manager who is guarding a pretty big secret. He’s best known as Jasper from Twilight, but he’s also got a mysterious side that fits my Gabriel beautifully.
5) And in the role for Pete, my rabid Star Wars fan with the bod of a surfer and one of Reg’s closest friends, I’d cast Dustin Milligan. He’s currently on 90210, and him and his hair and that air of “I might like Wookies, what’s it to you?” would fit Pete to a P.

*When I was in ninth grade, I started high school, which meant I met new people who’d never met me before. For the first two weeks of school, all I heard was, “Oh my God. You’re that girl from Mystic Pizza!” That girl was Annabeth Gish, who played Yale-bounder Kat. Even my closest friends thought the similarities were freaky, even to the extent that we both liked to wear headbands and were big geek bookworms. You can see my doppelganger here. (She’s the one on the left.)

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Because of the better community-building tools over at LiveJournal (read: We want more commenters people!), we’ve moved our address. We’re now at: http://thefiverandoms.livejournal.com We officially launch May 1 with an agent interview and hook contest; over the next week, we’ll … Continue reading →

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